Daron Malakian quotes

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“I have no interest in murder, and I have no interest in people dying, ... But I'm interested in people's minds, and sometimes Manson puts thoughts together that I find really interesting. Have you ever seen his unedited videos? He starts making a lot of sense. I'm sure people are scared of that, but to me, it's scarier to watch George Bush try to make sense.”

“[As for the group's political bite, there's no greater example than the recent single, B.Y.O.B ., inspired by a TV ad for the Army.] It glamorized going into the Army, ... It made it look like a party where everybody was going to have a good time.”

“When we were a club band, we always used to say, 'Man, if we ever see success, we'd like to open doors for other people, to push the boundaries and fully contribute something to art, to music, that is going to help it evolve instead of doing stuff for the sake of money or doing stuff for the sake of being popular.”

“System of a Down are one of the most misunderstood bands around. I mean, Armenian rock? What the fuck is that? Political? I could name so many more of our songs that aren't about politics than ones that are. And for a long time, everyone thought Serj wrote all of our tunes. Until this album came out, people thought he wrote all the lyrics. So there are so many different misunderstandings of System of a Down that I don't even let it bother me anymore. I'm just kind of used to it. Our first bio said something like 'four guys based out of LA who are Armenian and political,' and, well, it wasn't really right at all. I mean, we are all Armenian, but we didn't plan that.”

“What we do is just all over. What [singer Serj Tankian] is playing on the keyboard sounds like the [Disneyland] Main Street Electrical Parade. I like it because we have never done anything like that before.”